As I had mentioned earlier in my about post I’ve been playing with computers since the 80’s. Well much of that time was dedicated to learning electronics (the hardware) and not very much was about computers or programs. My attention, curiosity and engagement could not be held with a blinking cursor and the ability to write a short program in Basic. I was and am not a code freak. Then along came Windows 3.0 and I was re-engaged and re-energized the only problem was I couldn’t fit it all on my 286CPU computer. Only 29 of 30 some odd floppy’s would fit on the tiny hard drive. I was able to run some windows programs and it was enough to wet my whistle. My 14k modem(56k became the standard) allowed me to make my first “internet” connection on Compu-Serve (do they still exist?) Now I needed a new computer! Being the father of a young and still growing family that would have to wait until I paid off the 286. You see because computers were very expensive at the time, the company I worked for (like many others of the time) had an employee computer purchase program. You get a quote and they’d cut you a check so that you could purchase the comp of your dreams. Of course my wife thought I was crazy as the 286 had quickly become a boat anchor. It had to little hard drive and ram to accommodate windows 3.0 and to add insult to injury the crappy graphics wouldn’t support any of the cool games that were coming out.
So what’s this have to do with great free software you ask? Chill I’m getting to it. Ok? I finally got my new comp and it had a P1 processor with more ram and hard drive space than anyone will ever be able to use !lol! Ok but Windows 98 ran relatively well on it. The main problem now was the connection speed. Downloading a jpeg about the size of your avatar on facebook took minutes, a mp3 took half an hour and as far as video was concerned forget about it. At this time something special was about to happen to change that. Thank you “cable gods!” Along came high speed internet and now my engagement with computers/internet along with everyone else exploded.
Now before content became the name of the game, power users such as myself wanted more. We dreamed of being able to host a web page and or learn how to rip mp3’s etc but to do so required expensive utilities and programs. You learned quickly where all the good freeware/shareware sites were and soon I’m ashamed to say it but its true you learned where all the good warez sites were. First came mirc based on irc(internet chat relay-the basis of most chat clients) a good power user could set up and serve with the aide of a client such as invision content to the world. Little did you know how many virus’s you, me and others would get from some of these sources.(much like the peer to peer sites to come and now torrents)
Still there was something missing. With very little knowledge and a WYSIWYG such as ms’s front page I was able to create a website but how did I get it online. You see I still had a young and growing family and web hosting sites were few and far between and still quite expensive. Wtf is WYSIWYG?(what you see is what you get, gts for more info dude) Any how I digress. The meat and potato’s of the matter is I finally came across this gem of a website that had all kinds of great free software. The site is hosted by the software’s author/creator and he kindly lists what each piece is for and what level of computer user should be comfortable using it. It had been several years even I dare say a decade since I had visited this site and I am happy to report it is still up and running with a small twist. This clever host has added some original music to his site. This site has something for all levels of computer users from the newbie to site admin’s it has it all. Nothing could be easier to use than his Simple Server proggy (it allows you to host a website for free from your computer, just point it to your html file and thats it. you’re live on the internet! Free! No charge! As you can see I’ve added some ads to my site(please click on some) and if they ever pay off I will definitely click on his donation button. In the mean time I will click on his ads as they will generate some income for him. I know I know wtf is the site? Where is the link? In this digital age it is profoundly and aptly called…………………….
